1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to personal care appliances and attachments therefor, more particularly, to personal care appliances and attachments therefor which emit far infrared radiation and negative ions naturally during operation.
2. Description of the Related Prior Art
It is well known that far infrared rays, electromagnetic waves and negative ions are beneficial to human health. Certain kinds hair care devices, such as hair dryers, are found to incorporate electrical ion-generators for emitting ions and electromagnetic waves for effective and fast blow drying and for styling human hair. Such devices conventionally utilize piezoelectric generators or voltage generators to actuate ion-generators to produce negative ions. However, devices incorporating piezoelectric generators have to be actuated manually by users and thereby are inconvenient and troublesome to use, while those incorporating voltage generators are not able to emit ions effectively since the voltage generated by voltage generators is relatively too low for ion-generators to operate effectively. Moreover, such devices may also generate excessive amounts of ozone which is harmful and hazardous to human health. In addition, conventional hair care devices with the above generators are relatively bulky and are therefore difficult to use.
It is known that certain particular compound materials which emits far infrared radiation and electromagnetic waves of certain wavelengths are applicable to hair dryers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,205,674 discloses a hair dryer A (with reference to FIG. 1) with ceramic layers 33 and 41 coated onto heating element 3 and the inner surface of nozzle 4 respectively. Such ceramic layers 33 and 41 are composed of extreme infrared radiation material emitting powders and poly-element minerals powders. By heating the heating element 3, the extreme infrared radiation material powders emit extreme infrared radiation and the poly-element minerals powders emit electromagnetic waves with wavelengths of 4 to 14 μm. However, the ceramic coating layer applied on the heating element may be peeled off or be worn off due to the relatively high temperature raised on the heating element during operation of hair dryer. In addition, heat will accumulate where the darker ceramic coating material is applied likely resulting in damage to the heating element, and even the outlet part 2 of the hair dryer, commonly made of plastic, may easily soften or melt.
Accordingly, a need exists for an ion-emitting personal care appliance which is compact, lightweight and easy-to-use and which durably produces relatively highly charged negative ions.